Thursday, January
2nd., 2009:Immediately after purchasing a
Microsoft
LifeCam Show, a friend tells me that they are very fragile, whereas a
Logitech model can be kicked across a room without breaking. Time will tell!!

The reason for purchase was that I
would like to see my father, over a Skype or similar network, visually
contact his family, for the time he has remaining. He keeps saying that
he hasn't much time left, but he keeps on plodding. (This entry was
written three months before he actually died, and nothing transpired of
this plan).

Later, should I have any friends with a
similar setup, then I can phone, and do other things with the object.

Wednesday, January 7th.,
2009: I came back home, trudging in
the snow, to discover that Outlook seemed to have a problem revealing
images. Then I noticed that the SpeedTouch DSL modem seemed to be
malfunctioning. An hour later, after much pratting about, I managed to
reawaken the object and regain internet access. That meant that
everything now works as it did when I left home this morning. I have no
idea what happened to the modem, but it has started to work again, and
indicates that I need to purchase a spare, just in case.

Thursday, January 8th.,
2009: The day that my younger
daughter becomes fourteen. The snow and the bus strike has screwed up my
intentions of obtaining a present for her. Whatever, times will improve.
Not, however, like the Microsoft File Transfer Manager that one cannot
use as one would wish. There are three or more files that were
downloaded but the MFTM believes weren't. One cannot remove them.
Ridiculous.

The only way to have the file one actually wants
downloaded, is to keep telling the programme to forget the other files,
and then right click on the source file on the MS site, and it will
work, as can be seen here. I'm downloading Windows 7 beta. Large file.

The next time that I try MFTM, it will begin by
wanting to download the top three files, and more, again. There is no
way to remove the damned things. Of course, I can use other computers,
but I want to fix the bug: wouldn't you?

Friday, January 9th.,
2009: I do not know why I am having
a problem with FireFox, the latest build. Today, and this has happened
before, I discovered that one of the tabbed pages that are open is one
that I have never been to or asked for. I cannot find anything on the
Mozilla site to explain this. At least, with Kaspersky Internet
protection enabled, there are warnings about odd pages and downloads are
inspected.

Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand
Milford Track, same place, below:

Sunday, January 11th.,
2009: I received a few emails in
return from Kaspersky, none of which referred to the problem I
elucidated whatsoever. The proliferation of idiotic casino based
spam emails is a real nuisance. The request to forward them to Kaspersky
is something that I have done repeatedly. The emails keep coming: they
are addressed to many fictitious emails on my domains, and come from
many sources, seemingly changing randomly.

Another problem is the impossibility of editing
account information for two of my domains, based at Network Solutions.
Constant attempts over the years produces nothing: what are they up to?

Tuesday, January 20th., 2009: A day
that will be remembered by everyone old enough to appreciate the Barack
Obama saga. Brilliant!

Have not had many computer problems, except for
Kaspersky blocking an Apache 2.2 service. That I seemingly have cured.
But , , , , , ,

Plus, I have now added two WordPress blogs to two of
my internet domains. There is a lot of work to be done before they
become of any value. Themes, editing and other stuff is yet to be
learnt.

Wednesday, January 21st., 2009: The
WordPress blogs are intricate, and need extra tools to enable editing in
any real fashion. The themes that one can include look different in
different browsers: FireFox is better than IE, of any version.

Sunday, January 25th., 2009: The
blogs are now starting to work a little better, and I have also
installed the Gallery programme on both of the Linux partitions on the
two URLs. The WordPress WPG2 plug-in aids one in working with the blogs.
Not that I believe that these two blogs will prove of great importance:
it is a basic learning process, just like my younger daughter advising
me about IM, which she uses in Montréal. When she was here yesterday,
she opened up her account, and there were many on her associated list.
Now, I have one, and that is her, Katharine. I have mentioned that she
should obtain a webcam, because we can then chat via IM or Skype.

Saturday, January 31st., 2009: There
is a problem with FireFox 3.0.5. Every now and then there is a sound
from the computer's speakers as FireFox fails.

I have no idea what the problem is. Searching implicates wmv, but I
don't have that application running at any time that there is a crash.

And, another dumb thing that I've discovered about IE8: one can nearly
always save a page as .mht but equally not as .html. That is a
no-brainer with Firefox.

Friday, February 6th., 2009: Firefox has stopped acting
up, probably because another update came down the pipe. The current
problem is one with IE of versions 6 to 8, none of which will show
http://x.mattoid.com/blog correctly. They will do so with
http://x.mattoid.ca/blog which is ridiculous, because there
are no differences between them of any real significance. The other
browsers that I use, which includes Safari, show the blogs as expected.

Sunday, February 8th., 2009: After working fine for
weeks, Alibris ordering fails every time, for the past few days, with
this message:This is something that has occurred since their techies were working on
their servers. The emails from Alibris imply that the problem is cured.
Not so.

Monday, February 9th., 2009: Arose to discover that the
Firefox runtime Visual C++ error has come back to haunt this computer,
the Dell Precision: the problem does no arise on any other.

And, the Alibris failings have obviously not been attended to: I came
back this afternoon and retried an order. The same error message arose
(see above). Finally, this evening at around 22:00hrs., I tried again,
to discover that where once one could use PayPal, now one cannot, not
until they can. What utter rubbish! This is not good marketing, given that
they had an upgrade and obviously never thought through all of the
ramifications. Will not be using Alibris until at least the time it allows
PayPal.

Wednesday, February 11th., 2009: Alibris
has denied Canadian users the previously allowed option to use PayPal, at
least for the immediate future.

The other thing is that, now I am
using Expression Web 2, I can now transfer my sites to MyHosting's Windows
Server 2008 boxes. That will happen on Friday, according to information
received. Good, but now comes a lot of work to redo all three sites, and
start adding more data.

Friday, February 13th., 2009:
I have changed over from Windows 2003 Server to 2008 for the
http://mattoid.ca
site. There have been problems: one I can't remark on until uploading is
complete. The zipped file from my Debian partition has proven to be
corrupted. However, going to the control panel for the URL, I discovered
that the partition still held files. I can't access them at this time.
Time will tell.

What has happened does not produce faith in
promises made by the MyHosting staff. I came back to find that Expression
Web 2 has uploaded most of the files, and has an error. No matter, because
I can use ftp:// as a means to open the site and edit files. However, even
though a tracert gives a clean address to the new IP, there is a false
'temporary index.html file' notice, not the correct page that I find on
the site. It implies that MyHosting has not fixed the address within their
own servers? How can that be when I can tracert there? I have emailed
MyHosting Support, and await an answer. Given that it is Friday the 13th I
doubt that a rapid answer will occur: everyone is hiding somewhere?

It is almost 17:00hrs and I can now open the site using
ftp://mattoid.ca, but not using http://
where the operation gives an internal server error, presumably at
MyHosting. No answer from support, especially regarding a .txt file on the
site which refers to everything visible to the internet must be in the /wwwroot
folder. Not seen anywhere on the ftp access.

I can go to MyHosting
and access the control panel, and there I can find the disk space used,
which is around 800MB. And, I can open File Manager, and see the site.
But, I still cannot access it using a browser. Wot! as they say.

Two conversations with a decent guy on the phone at MyHosting. There was
no wwwroot folder and when that was added and the files moved over, then,
bingo! the site is now available, even with IE.

Then, I discovered
that the old x.mattoid.ca Debian partition was not properly cancelled.
Because it wasn't cancelled, there was no recreation on the new site.
Therefore, since I downloaded and zipped a complete set of files from that
partition, only to find it was corrupted, it may be possible for MyHosting
to copy over the files when the new Debian partition is created.

One hopes that happens, because, for one thing, the WordPress entries are
date sensitive, and, for another, there are a lot of images in the Gallery
that I really don't want to have to upload all over again. But, see below,
for what really happened.

Sunday, February 15th., 2009:
There have been some major problems with the transfer of my three
domains to Windows Server 2008 64-bit edition. It has almost been
completed, but I had to reinstall every single programme and the attendant
data for both
http://mattoid.com and
http://mattoid.ca.
There were also problems with the mySQL databases that MyHosting Support
insisted could be exported and imported. I tried several times to no
avail. Below is the image of the phpMyAdmin error message:

This has proven that the email I received was faulty: one cannot, as mySQL
is invisible to the user, alter the requirements, and phpMyAdmin itself
cannot help.

WordPress bug. The other problem has been one relating to the latest
build of K2 when used as a theme in WordPress. I found the cure on a
WordPress forum, here it is:

The bug is in the function k2_body_class in
k2/app/includes/info.php (line 648):

Here is an image to show how the page looked under the bug:
I had corrected the instances on the mattoid sites .net and .ca and, when
I installed WordPress and updated it on .com, then the same bug appeared.

I corrected it by uploading a modified file, and everything now works.
When I thought about it, I realised that I would never have found the
error, especially given that although I am conversant with php I am not
totally au fait with all of its intricacies. If one looks at the number of
files in the folders, those users of K2 affected are lucky that someone
knows what to do.

I have not been happy to have had to upload all of the images for
Gallery2 on .ca and .com, simply because the database could not be
exported and imported. The error message is one I told MyHosting support
about, but they insisted that I could do it. Not bloody so, me lad!

Monday, February 16th., 2009: It has been a salutary
experience working on the transfer of my three sites. MyHosting has email
procedures in place that are supposed to help one over the operation.

Therefore, there were no emails when I transferred the latter site. I
was advised that emails would be sent to
admin@mattoid.com
but they were not received. The reason is that when one transfers the site
all of one's email addresses are deleted. This was ascertained by going to
http://web2mail.com
and checking the situation. Nothing remained, for any email address, and the web-based email
check produced the related error.

Overall, although several people at support helped me, especially when
there were problems with the Linux partitions for two of the sites, it is
clear that the lack of clear instructions on the MyHosting site is
something that should be remedied. I believe that a lot of the operations
are scripted, and purportedly automatic. It is clear that the Control
Panel for each site appears before the underlying operations are valid.
Several times, even though the links on the Control Panel were live, the
underlying operations were absent. This related at times to the Windows
partition, the Linux partition, phpMyAdmin, and other items. Eventually,
each one of these appeared, but after a delay. On one occasion, even
though my email requested that the whole site should be transferred, only
by phoning support did I discover that x.mattoid.com was scheduled to be
deleted and then renewed on the Windows 2008 combination at the end of
February. Absolutely not what my email had requested.

Another matter that has not yet been dealt with is the fact that
transferring one's sites produces the necessity to upgrade through one's
Control Panel. There is a charge that one must accept before one can carry
on and have the plan activated. Except that there should be no charge, and
that has been verified when speaking on the phone to Support. I have
emailed requesting that the three sets of charges should be removed.
Nothing has happened yet. This is yet another instance where the
procedures need fine tuning to properly reflect the applicant's status. As
a client of MyHosting for several years, the procedures should be modified
so that one's history is recognised.

The bald emails about cancellation are not what a neophyte customer
expects: this is a transfer, not a cancellation and reapplication. It was
a help for me that I went through the process twice before I transferred
mattoid.com. The lack of emails was irrelevant, because I knew, basically,
what would happen.

The problem with the dead Linux partition also related to the transfer
of x.mattoid.ca, because using Control Panel revealed the IP of the old,
redundant partition. That was not reachable via a browser, or by tracert.
After I had phoned support, the partition was deleted and then the new
one, after a delay, was created and attached to the new Windows 2008 site. I
had, as I have mentioned, subsequently to recreate the blog and the
gallery, with all of the long-winded uploads of images and rewriting of
blog pages.

I was lucky to have the lost blog pages open under persistent Firefox
tabs, so that I could take screen images and renew the text and pictures
when rewriting the blog's pages.

To reiterate, the boilerplate statements that are sent are unfriendly: an email to state
that the sites and the account are deleted. Then follows an email that the sites are
now parked. But
there is no proper instruction to advise one what to do if one cannot
receive emails. That would be a real problem for anyone that only has a
single site. I could not find the procedure required on the MyHosting
site.

The necessity of redoing all of my Linux associated programmes was a
real chore. One good thing that finally arose was that the x.mattoid.com blog
finally became visible to IE. There had been a basic error somewhere that
previously
prevented it from being seen completely by IE of any level. Other browsers showed the
whole blog cleanly.

Now, all three blogs are properly visible: I have remarked on my sites that
the blogs take the place of the guest books. The latter were prone to receive
spam. I have ensured that entries are verified before the public can see
their posts
thereon.

Now I have had the sites transferred, I intend to revamp all of the
pages, and implement CSS, and DWT perhaps, so that the sites become easier
to read and maintain. Lots and lots of work to do.

And now, yet another bug with MyHosting: when writing an email via the
Control Panel, it is likely that you will be logged off before you can
complete the message. That has happened several times. If one is dealing
with a problem, this is really frustrating. Another thing that should be
improved.

My thoughts on the transfers have been continuing. I reiterate
that there were many involuntary missteps and that adequate information is
lacking at MyHosting. The procedures also lack granularity, making one
wonder what one has to do to continue. And, on top of that, I received
misinformation and some personnel found difficulty in reading basic
English, or of understanding logical argument submitted by email.

I would really like to know if any database has ever been
copied over by a customer trying to do what I did; I presume it must have
been done on site, since the mySQL databases are invisible off site, and
are only used by one's programmes remotely. One simply hopes that setup
and use is done competently.

I received an email stating that the extra charges were removed. That's
one good thing that happened today. It is still a reflection on the fact
that the procedures are faulty.

Saturday, February 21st., 2009: A friend, a professor
at Carleton U, has been trying to move his site from one hosting company
to another. It has proven to be similar, in the manner of resultant
problems, to mine.

The new hosting company states that it can import, or rather move, the
site to its servers. Given that there seems to be another setup where the
main mySQL database is "owned" by the hosting company, there seems to be
no method of transferring the site's tables, just like the mess that I had
to cope with. The result in a return to the old hosting company.

Thursday, February 26th., 2009: A salutary lesson that
one should open the computers to check for dust balls; I cleaned two
today, including my ML570, which has many nooks and crannies. Lots of
extraneous matter. Runs better now, as does the workstation I also
cleaned.

Saturday, March 7th., 2009: Moving computers can
sometimes be parlous. I have a Dell 650 Workstation that was working fine
until I shut it down (properly). It would not start when placed elsewhere,
which can hardly be the cause. I went early this morning down to my
storage, and brought up the other Dell 650 that I had had problems with. I
moved everything over and, yowzah! it started fine attached to one
monitor. So, I moved it over into double monitor territory and it still
works.

I spoke too soon, it freezes, and the on-board LSI adapter eventually
is found to be the cause. I have spare PCI Express LSI 21320 cards that I
can use instead.

The moving of everything, books, computers and furniture, and the
resultant rearrangement follows from having
a lot of room to expand into. My father died on March 2nd., unexpectedly.
RIP
Raymond Ernest Dickins, 1919-2009.

Friday, March 13th., 2009: What is the problem? I have
had to mess around and install XP Pro twice on a Dell Precision 650 WS. It
will not join a network it would seem. The computer will start when in a
workgroup, but when I give the 1GB onboard NIC the network address the
computer will hang on a perpetual "Windows is starting up . . . " message.
What is the cause of this? I cannot start in Safe Mode, either, for the
same message arrives and will not disappear. No idea how on earth to fix
this. Maybe it's the Firewall? That is a possibility, but I had that
turned off for the previous installation, that which was the original Dell
plus SP3 implemented.

Saturday, March 14th., 2009: The cure? Remove the SCSI
hard drives, and install the OS onto the AT drive. Then, one by one, after
adding the LSI SCSI controller, place each SCSI drive onto the chain. When
the computer won't start, remove that drive, until all is working
properly. There was definitely a problem with one of the U320 SCSI drives,
preventing a proper start up of the machine. One lives and learns, what? I
really do not understand why one faulty drive, that has nothing to do with
booting up, prevents Windows from starting. On other machines, when drives
have become problematic, start up has never failed (other than with a boot
drive).

Monday, March 16th., 2009: Another ModusLnk drive had
failed, of which there are now five faulty 147GB examples that I bought
off that dealer. See an earlier Time Line for the history.

The second Dell 650 now starts up properly at last. That is a major
problem cured, since it took days to find out what exactly was wrong. It
now has one AT drive as boot and for the OS, XP Pro SP3, and three
U320 SCSI, 72.8GB drives for programmes and data.

I had not wanted to spend the money, but I do now have two fully
functional Dell Precision 650 Workstations. One has two 21" Panasonic
ProP110 CRT monitors, and the other has two HP 17" 1740 LCD in use. A
different view from each, and if the preference was needed, it would be
for the CRTs. They are easier on the eye, and have a wider range of modes.

I run the CRTs at 1800 x 1440 whereas the optimum for the LCD is 1280 x
1024. One good thing is that the HP LCD is rotatable from portrait to
landscape position. One of them is kept like that for easier viewing of
news pages.

Wednesday, March 18th., 2009: I have been trying to
use Spinrite 6 without any luck. The need for device drivers may be
required, but the Discovering System's Mass Storage Devices message has
been running for a long, long time. When it stops, I can determine if it
needs extra device drivers. That's for the faulty ModusLnk/Worldisk 147GB
U320 drives that sit awaiting testing.

I should have my head examined!! The problem with running Spinrite on
the IBM eServer x220 is that the YGLv3 S2 is the item on the motherboard
to cage that Windows treats as an unknown device; and for which there are
no drivers. This is known in Device Manager (XP Pro) as ServerWorks
Champion SouthBridge 4.

But, somewhere, because Spinrite runs in DOS, where actually lie the SCSI
drivers? Those that come for the OS one uses won't be of any use, they obviously won't run for any
other. My only solution may be to use one of my redundant ProLiant 800
boxes, with onboard SCSI.

Sunday, March 22nd., 2009: Several days spent yo-yoing
between here and the Computer Supply House store for parts. What I have
discovered is that Dell Precision 650 Workstations don't like StarTech
SATA adapters. Or, it's a combination of that and XP Pro SP3: lots of
problems trying to set up SATA drives. No formatting completed. I had to
put the drives in another machine, and used Disk Management to Quick
Format all three new drives very easily, totally unlike the lengthy
failures in the Dell.

So, that was easy, except that one of the drives gives errors when the
computer is booted up. Furthermore, when one reaches Disk Management, there
is nothing wrong with the particular drive, at least that is what one
reads.

I am expecting a round SCSI U320 cable through the mail. I think that I
will revert to all U320 in the Dell. I can use the SATA drives elsewhere.

Monday, March 23rd., 2009: The round cable, five
connections for drives, plus slimline terminator, came on Friday, but I
had to collect it from the Mail today. It has been installed, and the U320
hard drives returned to the Dell. Now, everything runs as it did before,
without the constant failures that occurred after using SATA drives on PCI
cards. That was a disaster. Now things are normal, and am I relieved! I
shall use the SATA drives in another machine, whenever there is a need.

But, now there is another problem with my ML350 W2003 R2 server. Disk
management froze, and a forced boot has damaged the boot drive, therefore
there is a need to repair that, except that the boot up Repair option fails with a
hang at the damaged drive. Thus, a new installation may be necessary.
Rats!! It may need a swap on the chain to allow installation to begin.
There are always new problems to solve it seems.

Saturday, March 28th., 2009: I have dollied up a
ProLiant 800 from my storage, to use as a Spinrite drive analyser. However, nothing is
simple. I installed XP Pro SP3 on the box, which had, apart from the six
drives in the cage, two U160 68GB drives on an Adaptec 29160n. That was
easy, but when I replaced the second, unused drive, with the faulty U320
from the ML350, the machine would not work properly, because something
made the keyboard and mouse inoperable. There were initrd errors shown
when I started Spinrite, but the flashing "Working . . . . " screen is
there, and won't leave, even after 12 hours.

I wonder if using the Adaptec verify/format under Ctrl-A would work?
It's worth a try.

The verify worked, and the format is running, this
mid-morning as I eat my cereal.

I had a reply from GRC support, re perpetual working status. It might
be the FreeDos, so use an XP Dos disc. This I had, and started up the
ProLiant. Spinrite halted with a SCSI locked error. Now what?

One thing that did work: the drive I formatted with the Adaptec Ctrl-A
process was repaired and has been returned as a data drive to the original ML350
Win2003Ent machine. That was an important lesson: just because Windows
can't start because of a failing in a drive, does not mean that the latter
is really damaged. It may, as in this case, simply be cured by a
verify/format.

Sunday, March 29th., 2009: I thought for a while that
the dreaded starting up twaddle had begun again with one of my two Dell
Precision 650 boxes. I waited long enough and then shut it down and opened
the box. I checked the connections and closed it, started up the machine,
and it works again. What?!

The ProLiant 800 machines will neither of them install Windows XP Pro
with SP3 without locking up the mouse and keyboard. Changing mice or
keyboards makes no difference. So, back to the drawing-board in regard to
repairing U320, and other, drives. Especially with the error messages
regarding the on-board SCSI. Too bad, there has to be another way.

What I had also forgotten, is that a NetGear FA311 dislikes DHCP. It
much prefers having its IP properties fixed. After I had done that, and
altered the internet security by removing it, internet access to windows
updates was easy. So that has been done, and now to see if I can cure
failing U320 drives, at last.

But what I found is that Windows 2003 Enterprise installed with
seemingly no botheration. The only thing that sucks is the security
settings for IE that prevent any access to anywhere, including windows
update. It's a pain setting things up to actually work. Which in fact I
could not remedy, so bad it is to try to reach anywhere, on the internet
or on the network. The DC could not reach the ProLiant 800, although the
ProLiant used the DC for logging on. I could not find any security matter
or group setting or any other thing that seemed wrong.

Tuesday, March 31st., 2009: I found the cure for the
ProLiant 800: it was to install Win2003Ent R2 with SP2 integrated. This is
an earlier version of the OS, and there was a clean, and easy installation
and shares were allowed, with ease. This success has been nothing like my
experiences with the latest XP Pro with SP3, or with the latest Win2003Ent
downloaded from TechNet. Why this should be I know not, but I am glad that
I tried the option. Now, at last, I can possibly fix the ModusLnk or
Worldisk monstrosities in my possession.

Saturday, April 4th., 2009: The prognosis is that the
faulty drives cannot be repaired via Spinrite. I have tried with two
ProLiant 800 boxes, but they have this odd BIOS set up that, when the
machines are working properly, won't allow Spinrite to start. That's a
real shame. Not much use for anything else, except perhaps for a Linux
variant. Win2003Ent R2 SP2 installed easily on both, however. But there is
no need for them on the network, currently.

I tried using Spinrite 6 with the IBM x220, and it started properly with
all three drives
installed in the hot-swap cage that work. When I replaced a healthy one with one I wished to repair,
the "working" message, unending, reappeared. Thus, Spinrite could see the
caged drives, but only if they were usable. That is hardly what I need to
happen.

Spinrite responded with an offer to refund my cost. However, I think
not, I need to research this further. They could find no reason why my
efforts were useless. I shall see what happens when I try the programme on
my machines that have no SCSI, or a mixture.

Wednesday, April 8th., 2009: I think that IE8 is the
most bug ridden, useless browser it has ever been my misfortune to use. On
this particular computer, and on the others that have IE8, the constant
running out of memory on line x, the delay in opening pages and other
matters is unconscionable. That on one computer there is a request to
update to IE8 when it is already installed makes one boil with
frustration.

Thursday, April 9th., 2009: Awaiting news from
England. Whilst doing that, I accepted that IE8 should be reinstalled and
completed that on two computers that also run Kaspersky AV software. The
installation removed the activation code for the Kaspersky software.
Luckily, that was easily remedied, but why did it happen in the first
place?

Friday, April 10th., 2009: I really don't know if the
IE8 updates that I installed are any better. I am completely fed up with
the little box that states "Out of Memory line 8" and keeps repeating so
that one cannot, in a normal fashion, close that page, or tab, or the
programme.

And, every time now, after any reboot, Kaspersky tells me that the
activation code has failed or that I have exceeded the number that are
allowed. So, currently, no protection whatever from this inactive
software. What is going on here?

I have installed repeatedly with the same result, and this in essence
is utter nonsense.

Monday, April 13th., 2009: I wonder whether the need
to uninstall, repair, activate, ad infinitum, has totally screwed the
Kaspersky servers. How to tell whether one has reached the limit or not?
One has not been advised about this.

Today, I became a grandfather for the second time; Sarah produced a
girl at 06:30GMT, after three hours of labour. No name as yet, but 42 days
to decide.

Tuesday, April 14th., 2009: Kaspersky techie advised
IE8 screwed up his installation. But, I have a constant problem. Any two
of three will open Kaspersky properly, except that I have a licence for
three computers. Here are typical screen shots.What is odd is that if
I shut down one of the three computers, the one that states it needs
activation suddenly becomes activated. Huh?
The latest thing is that I reinstalled on Cumbria, the least used of the
three, and at first it had the red K for Kaspersky working. Then, within a
few seconds it became problematic once again.

But, and this is a big BUT, all three now work properly?
What is it? I have downgraded from IE8 to IE7 on all three computers, so I
cannot tell if this is a delayed reaction to having done that. The
Kaspersky techie stated that he had had problems with IE8 the same way
that I had, when the forced odd update caused Kaspersky to give activation
error messages. How strange.

This is Windows Update time, so that I shall probably be forced to
reboot every computer on the network shortly. I shall wait to see if the
Kaspersky red K still appears after that: that's when I shall feel safe
about the situation.

Wednesday, April 15th., 2009: In fact, after the
updates and a reboot, Kaspersky failed again. Also, having had problems
publishing from the URL to the server, it was successful, although there
was a missing URL error several times, in completing the request, finally.
I may just forget about Kaspersky on this computer, since I don't go
anywhere fake with it.

What it implies is that Kaspersky has problems with networked machines
and that IE8 might be an ancillary reason it fails when only three
computers on the network have the anti-virus software installed.

Another problem with Expression Web 2 is that it will never completely
open a page, on the URL, that has images in any number. The placeholders
appear but the images do not. Equally problematic is that large images
will never appear so that one can never make a thumbnail. This means that
all editing and in fact all work is done on the files resting on the local
server. Uploading by ftp may work, but it is easier to copy and paste, or
drag. That's time consuming if there is a lot to be done.

What I have discovered after the initial large, probably total site,
publishing changes fiasco, is that nothing is published if I edit/add on
the server, and copy/paste to the URL. The sites have seemingly combined
ownership of data.

Sunday, April 19th., 2009: I have given up on the
Kaspersky fiasco. Nothing makes three computers available. So, I have
reinstalled IE8, primarily because it has tabs, just like Firefox has had
for years. But IE7 hasn't, and it is just as problematic regarding hangs
and other faults.

I have decided to take the easier route. For a change, and, sadly, I
have given up with trying to repair the U320 drives, since I have no
computer suitable for fixing them, or, on the other hand, SpinRite is not
good enough.

Sunday, April 26th., 2009:
The oddest thing regarding the AD network I run is that one computer
cannot be seen in Explorer by any of the other computers, including the
Domain Controller.
Looking at the image, one can see that under Explorer on Rutland, the DC,
Leicester does not appear. Under Active Directory Users and Computers,
Leicester is present, in lower case. That seems to be a significant fact,
given that all of the other computers are in upper case, and can be seen
by Explorer.

Why this should be is a mystery to me. Luckily, Leicester has shares
for certain drives that work, and which ameliorates the situation.

Monday, April 27th., 2009: I posted on the Petri.il
site, and followed "Virtual"'s recommendations. No improvement. I added a
DC to the network, something I needed to do for peace of mind. That did
not improve the DNS Explorer AD problem. Here are relevant images:

The top image is a tracert on the main DC to the offending computer and
to the other DC. The second image is a tracert on Leicester to the two
DCs. The bottom image is the Explorer Network section with no Leicester,
just as it is shown on every other computer on the network, Server or
otherwise. Simply something weird.

Tuesday, April 28th., 2009: The problem with Leicester
is to do with trust relationships within the domain. That's what this
message states, anyway: This message arose on a DC, Lancaster, when trying
to open a previously usable share.
Click on the image to see what it says!It's odd that Leicester has
shares that are still operable, and allow me, for example, to open
programmes and use data on the DC, Rutland, RAID-5 arrays.

I used a support ticket from my TechNet subscription and, using Easy
Assist, the techie in New Delhi was able to fix the problem. It was a
security issue/AD problem that took about two hours to sort out.
Everything now works as it used to do.

Saturday, May 23rd., 2009: Too bad, the problem with
Leicester has returned. I know not why, but it was only after using
robocopy on some folders and realising that Windows Network does not show
Leicester again, even though in the DC computers list the computer is
there. It, as usual, is the only one listed in lower case. All of the
others are listed in upper case. Why?

Mind you, the fix is easy: reboot, log on as local admin on the local
computer. Reboot and log on as the normal user for the domain and, voilà,
you're back and listed. Idiotic charade.

Another constant fubar is the installation of IE7 on Leicester stating
constantly that it's out of memory on line 8. So?

Friday, June 12th., 2009: I do not know how to stop
this idiotic loss of rights in Microsoft Windows Network for Leicester.
Every time I try now to start up as local and then change to LAN access,
it won't allow it. The computer name remains as leicester.dickins.lan and
change is greyed out.

Nothing to do perhaps except rename the computer, reallocate a network
address and then see what happens, especially when I bring in a used HP
XW8200 shortly. 64-bit paradise, one hopes. Except that this workstation
has single banked RAM. When one wishes to add to it, then they are made
redundant. The bigger RAM is double-banked and cannot be used with its
lesser brothers. Rats. The cost is more than one would wish.

Wednesday, July 1st., 2009, Canada Day 142: Use IE8,
and leave it for a while. Now, try to refresh the page. How long does it
take? On my machines, all of them, almost all of them different, it takes
a long, long time. How poor is that? Try to find something on Microsoft's
site to elucidate the cause: there is nothing available.

Tuesday, July 7th., 2009: I have had problems removing
items from MFTM (Microsoft File Transfer Manager) that had been cancelled
or otherwise not wanted. Couldn't find out why not, but eventually, by
looking under the computer's current user as signed on, I found MFTM in
the Documents and Settings/Application Data/Microsoft folder. Changing the
names of the text files and removing other .asp files enabled me to use
the programme properly at last.

Sunday, August 2nd., 2009: Well, Windows 7 RC
installed on an HP XW4300 with two HP 1740 flat panel monitors. Both light
up, with the same images. Neither appear in Device Manager, and only one
monitor appears in Win7 Display/Screen Resolution. No way to cure this
even with major searches. Tried all manner of fixes, but nothing works,
although was able to install the latest driver for the Nvidia FX540 dual
output video adapter. For Win7 X64 box.

Wednesday, August 5th., 2009: The problem arose in
both Win7 Ultimate RC and with Vista Ultimate, both X64. Both with the
latest nVidia driver set.

Note in the top of these two images that there are no monitors shown.
Note, too, the chipset is Intel i955. That is the chip set having
conflicts with the Quadro driver set. The bottom image shows the visible
Quadro dual output (VGA and DVI, one each). I could move the cable that
worked to either monitor, and it would work. But, with only one monitor
shown in Vista/Win7 personalize application, one couldn't have two working
together.

Subsequently, I bought an Ati Radeon HD3650 card; it was installed and,
apart from a glitch in the Catalyst adjustment software, worked fine from
the start. The Vista screen resolution application cured a problem with
the secondary monitor being fixed at 640x480: it now works well, with both
screens coming up, and both monitors shown in Device Manager. And, both
monitors at the resolution I prefer.

The only problem now is what happens when I install Win7 Ultimate on
the XW4300, and then on its bigger cousin, the XW8200. It will be
interesting. One of my old Compaq servers, the ML350, will be retired, and
the innards used elsewhere.

Thursday, August 6th., 2009: Windows 7 is out for
downloading, if you have a TechNet subscription. I am downloading Ultimate
and Enterprise. 'Tis taking a long time, since many others are doing the
same thing, and the Microsoft servers must be working hard. Can't wait to
install the new OS on my new (refurbished second-hand) XW workstations.

Saturday, August 8th., 2009: A day after I installed
Windows 7 Ultimate X64 on the HP XW4300. After a few glitches, the updates
for the OS and Office 2007 were successfully installed. This is a steep
learning process, for this new OS: it does seem to work well, after the
problems that I had with the nVidia card. The aero theme and
semi-transparent folders, etc., are quite attractive, but how the computer
works when asked to, will provide the final decision about its usefulness.

Sunday, August 9th., 2009: This morning, I had to
phone Microsoft, because my TechNet download of Office 2007, installed
previously on many computers, and innumerable times within my test
network, told me it had been done too often.when installed on my XW4300.
This is strange. I have been given a number to call, which will be done
when they are open.

However, one thing that has struck me, and that is that I did not try
to activate immediately after the Office installation. Updates were run,
and its possible that that may have affected the software. I shall try
again when I install Win7Ult X64 on the XW8200. If it activates properly,
then I shall know why.

Monday, August 10th., 2009: This morning I downloaded
2008 Server with SP2, all types, both X64 and X86. The rate hovered around
320-330 KB/s, which is significantly faster than the ca 40-50 KB/s for
Windows 7 a couple of days ago. Obviously, the demand for Windows 7 was
much greater than for the latest server OS.

I have found the same quirk that occurs occasionally on XP Pro: an
administrative account demoted to debugger without warning. It's easy to
spot, it's suddenly impossible to do certain tasks that an administrator
must complete. Easy to change, but a tiresome flaw in the OS.

Friday, August 14th., 2009: Circumstances forced me to
buy a cell phone. I obtained a Telus smartphone: a Blackberry 9530 Storm.
There is desktop software for the phone that comes with the package. It
would not install properly on my white box, Oxford, neither would the
upgrade.

I downloaded the upgrade to Hyperion, a Windows 7 machine. It installed
cleanly and quickly and then on to learning the ins and outs of a
smartphone. Not trivial, and I have come across some real problems. The
worst is that I have the Premium version of DataViz Sheets to Go software
and it does now (!) import .xlsx files. But, although forum users protest
that it will, my files will not open in View mode. That means that I
cannot navigate the file properly. With a small screen and idiosyncratic
operators, that is severely problematic.

Friday, August 21st., 2009: After the kerfuffle with
the XW4300 about nVidia cards, the same thing has arisen with the XW8200
that I am working on now. The OS is, again, Windows 7 Ultimate, and it is
slowly working its way towards finally installing itself.

I had two ridiculous situations with this computer; the first is my
fault in not reading that it only had a CD-ROM. No wonder the DVD was a
non-system disk! The second was that it wouldn't pass through the BIOS
startup without complaining about the combination of SCSI and SATA drives.
So, I removed the SCSI drives, because I can use them elsewhere, and kept
four SATA, of which two were 1TB and the other two 320GB. Unfortunately,
Windows 7 won't install on a dynamic drive, which the two 320GB drives
turned out to be. So, I have taken a spare SATA 160GB and used that as the
installation drive.

Things are still churning along, but one of the two IBM flatscreens
tells me it has an input signal out of range. Will updated drivers cure
this? Don't hold your breath. The nVidia curse strikes again, it appears.

And, it did, because with two monitors turned on, set up would never
finish. Turning off one monitor allowed it to nearly complete adequately.
With only one monitor. Tomorrow means more expense and the purchase of a
card that is Radeon or a similar ATi base.

Currently, the machine is unresponsive with the one monitor activated,
and a Quadro video card.

Saturday, August 22nd., 2009: Successful, and
responsive, after installing an Asus Radeon based PCI-e card. Both
monitors visible, and have now installed Office 12 and other programmes.
And now, after a while, the computer, Temeraire, now reveals all of the
others except, of course the odd one, Leicester, that is never present in
Windows Network on any other than itself. Still peculiar and never able to
be cured.

Sunday, August 23rd., 2009: Nothing ever runs
smoothly. The new installation of Windows 7 on Temeraire, the HP XW8200
was apparently successful. Except that I cannot have it remain with the
network. If I do certain things, for example use IE8 to import favourites,
it will do that, and show the networked computers. If I then change the
Explorer, click on it anywhere, even when the computers are shown, then
they disappear. In Windows Network, the computer is shown, but no access
is allowed, even from the DC from which the logon is obtained. What???

Using Network and Internet Troubleshooter, nothing comes back. There
apparently is not a problem. Except that nothing is shown, there is no
visible explanation of what the process undertook.

Something very strange: I opened Explorer on the other Windows 7
Ultimate box, Hyperion. It sees Temeraire, and it can open all of its
folders. I am copying a large amount of data to one of Temeraire's drives
without a problem. So, this is a Windows 7 networking problem. The HP
XW4200 using Windows 7 Ult. had a problem initially, but now sees all of
the other computers, including the DC, and can copy to any of them. No
idea what is wrong, but still having to work on it. This new box,
Temeraire, is a good one, with a lot of RAM and much drive capacity. I do
not want to waste it.

I had thought a cure was found; in gpedit.msc. But, it produced a logon
failure: the target account name is incorrect. At the same time,
Leicester, lately an outcast, has come back into the Windows Network
cloak.

Late evening I discovered that the administrator account on Victory
(the renamed Temeraire) was red crossed. Another administrative account
had been demoted to debugger. There was a trust relationship between the
domain and computer that had failed. I logged off and joined a Workgroup.
I then used System when logged on to the Workgroup and rejoined the
domain. Everything so far has worked as it should.

Tuesday, August 25th., 2009: Not everything is working
correctly. I restarted Victory, the HP XW8200 running Windows 7 Ultimate.
It failed to see the internet NIC, and would not reinstall the driver. A
restart brought everything back to normal with me having done nothing
whatever. How odd is that? And then, it would not copy over a .txt file
from an XP Pro box.

Sunday, August 30th., 2009: The only XP box on the
network gave me problems when suddenly the graphics card gave up. This was
Saturday, and I had to hunt for an AGP replacement. That, an Asus AH3450
AGP 8X (512MB), was found and installed. It seemed to work well, but when I moved
a NIC in the machine, the Dell gave the flashing amber power light, and an
amber B in the four light diagnostic range below it. Problem is supposedly a power supply, or memory, or an adapter. I changed the power supply,
thinking that the more likely culprit. (That necessitated a walk down to
the storage locker, about a mile away, and removal of the power supply
from another Dell Precision 650 box, with a defective motherboard).

I could not cure the problem even by changing
the case, and placing everything in another Dell Precision 650, one I had
decided to remove from the network temporarily.

Eventually, it was the new card that proved the problem. By placing the
nVidia Quadro that was in the demoted Dell Precision into the one I wanted to keep,
the computer immediately started up correctly. I had to rename some
drives, and alter the monitor resolution (after uninstalling the Ati programmes
that were giving a fit, since the new card had gone away), and
everything is now working again.

Hours and hours of futile work searching for
something that I could have discovered by taking one card from the demoted
Dell in the first place.

Tuesday, September 1st., 2009: More problems: two of
the U320 drives on the sole XP Pro SP3 machine were nearly full of data. I
decided therefore, to install the Adaptec SATA 1205SA Raid card that won't work
in a Windows 7 machine. It worked, and the two much larger SATA drives
have started up, but not until the voltage problem in the Dell was
handled. The machine works fine now, and the two SATA drives will handle what
can be thrown at them for a considerable time.

The white box, with Windows 7 X64 handled by the AMD processor, which
is on an X86 (32-bit) motherboard, now has a PCI-express x 1 Adaptec
AAR-1220SA SATA card for
the two SATA drives installed and waiting for a working card. This worked easily, using Vista drivers.

Given that I had extra drives,
I have added a 147GB U320 to an array on the ML 570: it has taken a day to
reach 90% of the process. Then it should become a somewhat better data
receptor.

Wednesday, September 2nd., 2009: Late yesterday, I
renewed the other Dell Precision, Cumbria, with four 78GB U320 drives and
the Asus AH3450 video card, AGP 8X, that would not work in the same case
on Sunday now does and why now I know not. It has been made another X86
Windows 7 Ultimate machine: to see how it works in comparison with the XP
Pro box, and the X64 associates on the Windows 2003 Server Active
Directory domain.

Perhaps there were too many PCI cards in the XP computer,
Leicester. In Cumbria, I have also placed an nVidia GeForce FX5200
(128MB), single DVI output, in a PCI slot. That works and I now have the
capacity of using three monitors on this machine. I very well may do so
later on.

I have still not determined the cause for the intermittent status of
neighbouring computers on the domain. Sometimes they are there, sometimes
not: there does not seem any logical reason for the situation. This is to
do with what the Windows 7 computers show on their Network section:
nothing is ever consistent, unlike the XP Pro boxes when present.

Tuesday, September 8th., 2009: I am becoming
increasingly tired of having to reboot every time there are updates. Why,
when I have been told that they would be minimized at an increasing rate.
And, with Windows 7, if one reboots then one's desktop icons are altered
to alphabetical, and won't stay as one has ordered them and refreshed.
Utterly ridiculous, and no wonder techies become irritated.

Friday, September 11th., 2009: A Kingston 8GB Micro
card that I bought recently has given me real problems. Firstly, for
whatever reason, it became unwritable, whatever computer it was mated to.
Then, when placed in Oxford, the WhiteBox, it crashed Windows 7 when
removed. It hadn't been recognised by the computer, so why did it crash
it? The card in my old Olympus camera was recognised in the same reader.
And the other, external reader allowed the Kingston card to be seen.

This shot shows both cards, with the camera item in front of the Kingston
Micro, and the two readers. That in the computer can be seen, note the red
dot.

Monday, September 21st., 2009: The start of Autumn,
the equinox. And, the day that the spam on my blogs ceased. A simple cure:
one now has to ask permission to post thereon. And, naturally, one can't.

Monday, September 28th., 2009: On one computer,
Victory, with 16GB RAM, IE8 constantly freezes at inopportune times. No
cure, but closing it and reopening will keep it going until the next time.
Plus, trying to buy an upgrade to EWeb 3 can't be done from any of my
computers because Canadian Provinces, and the actual country, fail to
appear on Digital River's pages. No cure, either.

Thursday, October 1st., 2009: What happened to my two
64-bt HP boxes? Both gave me DHCP NIC errors by failing. After much work
they began to work again, and I need to replace them with NICs that will
work with Win7/Vista, to ensure it doesn't happen again. What a charade it
was: maybe, just maybe, related to the installation the previous day of
the free Microsoft Security Essentials on both machines. Who knows, these
days?

Sunday, October 11th., 2009: Expression Web 3 will be
in the mail on Tuesday next; because I had those problems Microsoft's Rick
Claus and Rini Gahir decided I deserved a free full edition. Neat.

Tuesday, October 13th., 2009: The iPod Touch that I
have has a basic flaw: one cannot have the auto logon work at the usual
place that I use to access the web. That's in a Starbucks café with Bell
CA access. Every time I use the iPod I have to log on again. How pathetic.

Another thing that annoys me is the iTunes indication of constant
upgrades that are deemed necessary, according to Apple. And, of course,
there is a reboot. Why so many upgrades; is it faulty programming?